Carolina_Matt
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2018
- Messages
- 483
- Reaction score
- 255
I started brewing last January and I have 20 extract batches under my belt. My wife bought me 3 all-grain kits from Morebeer.com for Christmas, so I decided to give BIAB a shot. The Wilser bag arrived this weekend and I brewed today. It was a pretty smooth process, although my efficiency sucked (according to Brewers Friend). I'm think part of it is because they didn't mill it fine enough - I saw a lot of kernels in the bag.
Strike temp was 162, and mash temp was 153. I covered it with a moving blanket, but didn't make it tight. After 30 minutes it was 150 degrees. By the end of the hour it was 149-150.
I held the bag over my 10 gallon kettle for a minute, then moved it into an extra stockpot with a pasta insert. I pushed down on the bag with a pot cover a few times, but mainly just used gravity. I poured all the drippings into the kettle as it started to boil.
The rest was easy. I liked not having to deal with LME, and the Wilser bag was surprisingly easy to clean. I'm used to the bags that come with kits, where the specialty grains get stuck. With this bag, they just rinsed right off.
As for efficiency, I started with 7 gallons and wound up with about 5.25. I poured virtually everything into the fermenter and didn't strain anything out. OG was about 1.052 (it read 1.050 at 77-79 degrees), which was right in line with the kit (they mentioned 1.052-1.055). Brewers Friend gave me a 60% efficiency.
The weird thing is their kit says it's made for 70% efficiency, but when I put the ingredients into Brewers Friend I get about 60%, which is in line with what I got (and that makes sense, since I hit the OG).
6 lbs 2-row
5 lbs American White Wheat
1 lb Flaked Oats
5 gallons wort @ 1.055 OG (according to the high end of the recipe)
The website gives me 60.44% for the recipe. Either I'm using the calculator wrong, or the recipe isn't optimized for 70%?
Strike temp was 162, and mash temp was 153. I covered it with a moving blanket, but didn't make it tight. After 30 minutes it was 150 degrees. By the end of the hour it was 149-150.
I held the bag over my 10 gallon kettle for a minute, then moved it into an extra stockpot with a pasta insert. I pushed down on the bag with a pot cover a few times, but mainly just used gravity. I poured all the drippings into the kettle as it started to boil.
The rest was easy. I liked not having to deal with LME, and the Wilser bag was surprisingly easy to clean. I'm used to the bags that come with kits, where the specialty grains get stuck. With this bag, they just rinsed right off.
As for efficiency, I started with 7 gallons and wound up with about 5.25. I poured virtually everything into the fermenter and didn't strain anything out. OG was about 1.052 (it read 1.050 at 77-79 degrees), which was right in line with the kit (they mentioned 1.052-1.055). Brewers Friend gave me a 60% efficiency.
The weird thing is their kit says it's made for 70% efficiency, but when I put the ingredients into Brewers Friend I get about 60%, which is in line with what I got (and that makes sense, since I hit the OG).
6 lbs 2-row
5 lbs American White Wheat
1 lb Flaked Oats
5 gallons wort @ 1.055 OG (according to the high end of the recipe)
The website gives me 60.44% for the recipe. Either I'm using the calculator wrong, or the recipe isn't optimized for 70%?